Evaluating the Medical Student's Expectations of Learning Professional English, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Iran

Teaching professional English is one of the fields of teaching English started from the 60''s and simultaneous with the worldwide acceptance of English as a scientific language among scientists and researchers. In teaching Medical English، understanding the expectations of students is very important; however، up to now no study has been conducted about this topic. In this study، we evaluated the expectations of medical students from learning professional English. This was a cross-sectional study. A reliable and valid questionnaire was distributed among all of the students in the faculty of health and medical students who had the professional English course in the second semester of 2011. Descriptive statistics was performed by Mini Tab. 199 students volunteered to participate and complete the questionnaire out of whom 36. 4% were males. The mean age of the study samples was 22. 3 ± 0. 3 years. 95. 5% of the students were interested in learning Medical English. The most frequent expectation was to understand medical texts and being capable of translating the texts to Persian language. The most favorable class activity expected from the teacher was to write the meaning of the words on the board and explain its components. Furthermore، most students wanted the final exam to be in English and include workbook practices. Medical English teachers can obtain higher satisfaction rate of students by considering the student expectations mentioned in this paper.